Mental health at work: a practical framework for employers

Mental health is a universal issue critical not only to individual health and well-being, but also to workforce sustainability and organizational performance. Leaders increasingly understand the imperative to support workers' mental health but are often unsure of where to start or how to prioritize their actions. Numerous guidance documents for employers have emerged in recent years, but without conducting their own needs and risk assessment and evaluating the policies and practices they have in place, employers are left unaware of specific risks their workers face, effectiveness of their current practices, and actions they could take that would have the greatest positive impact. To address this gap, Columbia University's Mental Health + Work Design Lab, mental health non-profit One Mind at Work, and corporate ethical standards measurement company Ethisphere partnered to develop a comprehensive framework and corresponding self-assessment to help employers evaluate their organizational-level workforce mental health efforts and strategically invest in evidence-based practices. In this article, we detail the range of organizational-level practices necessary to effectively support and advance workforce mental health and present a framework for assessing and improving these efforts.